


And so the war began again

by Calypso_248



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gallows Humor, Second War with Voldemort, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-03 23:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2891735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calypso_248/pseuds/Calypso_248
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorcas Lydia Meadowes, daughter of the Dorcas Meadowes thought she left the wizarding world behind when she joined the muggle police force. With the Second Wizarding War coming in 1995, her loyalties to the world she was born in and the world she has grown to love will be tested, as well as her fear over her guardianship of a werewolf child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Her name was Dorcas Lydia Meadowes. She was the granddaughter of Dorcas Mary Meadowes and the Dorcas Anne Meadowes. The Meadowes were a famously matriarchal family, and when she was born on a sticky July day in 1973, her mother had not hesitated in bestowing upon her the family name before running off to join the Order of the Phoenix.

Dorcas Lydia rarely saw much of her mother for the eight years that she was present in her life. Dorcas Anne was a fantastically gifted witch and staunch supporter of Dumbledore, loyal to her very core, but maternal she was not. An opinion of herself motherhood had only seemed to reinforce. Dorcas Lydia could count on one hand the number of times her mother showed her any affection. She couldn’t recall a time where she told her she loved her.

Therefore Dorcas Lydia was raised by her grandmother, an old-fashioned yet kindly witch who was devoted to her daughter, granddaughter and family name. She wondered if her grandmother disapproved of her daughter’s lifestyle, but Dorcas Mary Meadowes had never said anything, and her granddaughter too afraid to ask.

Her mother died when she was eight years old. Dorcas Lydia and her grandmother has been eating breakfast at the kitchen table when her silvery doe materialised and informed them of the news. Dorcas Lydia remembered very little of what actually happened besides the anguished crying of her grandmother, and the doe itself. She had wondered how to make an animal look like that and whether her grandmother knew.

At her mother’s funeral she overheard a grizzly man telling a handsome dark haired man how her mother had been killed by You-Know-Who personally. She remembered the near reverence in both men’s voices as they discussed it, as she stood wondering what was so great about that, being eight and rather ignorant of the terror spreading around the wizarding world. They had then been silenced by the dark-haired man’s companion, a tired looking mousy haired man, who gave her a square of chocolate. 

Years later she learned that her mother had died in the living room of the cottage she was hiding in, clad only in her nightgown. She could picture the scene too easily, her mother sprawled out and empty eyed, wearing the blue, flannel nightgown her mother had bought her for Christmas. Dorcas Lydia thought that if that was a death others were awed by, she hoped to die in her bed where no-one would see.

For the remainder of her childhood, Dorcas Lydia was raised by her grandmother. The identity of her father was unknown though her grandmother was certain that he had been killed by Death Eaters. Dorcas Lydia was of the opinion that he had learned of her existence in her mother’s womb and hightailed it out of there.

Like every other magical child in Great Britain, she went to Hogwarts when she was eleven. The sorting hat placed her in Ravenclaw almost immediately (every Meadowes had been a Ravenclaw, except her Gryffindor mother), and had immediately felt the weight of expectation heaped upon her.

“That’s Dorcas Meadowes’ daughter, You-Know-Who killed her personally you know. Extraordinary witch, I wonder if the daughter is anything like her.”

After overhearing a teacher say that, Dorcas Lydia strove to be as normal as possible. She made friends, went on trips to Hogsmeade, did well on her OWLS and NEWTS and never made any effort to distinguish herself from the crowd. 

Several days before she graduated from Hogwarts her grandmother died, leading her to spend her first days of adulthood planning a funeral. 

After it ended she stood in front of her mother’s grave and studied the dates on it intently. Dorcas Anne Meadowes had only been twenty-seven when she died. She had seemed much older when Dorcas Lydia was eight.

She wished she could have asked her mother did she think it was worth it, defending a society that was deeply afraid of anything and everything that was different. A society where many of its inhabitants had welcomed the ideas of Voldemort (she is not afraid to say his name. Why should she be afraid of the made-up name of a ludicrously self-important bully?) Dorcas Lydia doesn’t understand why people would want to slaughter the majority of the population in England. Muggles were much cleverer than any wizarding folk. Whenever they faced prejudice in America or South Africa, they fought and overcame it as best they could. Wizards and witches seemed content to brush away werewolves; vampires etc. and then somehow been surprised when they sided with a man who promised them freedom.

Dorcas Lydia supposed that this made her good, if morality could be defined in such black and white terms. (She wonders what her mother thought.)

So she ran. Ran and joined the Muggle world, the people she had watched through the window of her grandmother’s cottage when she was young. She had taken Muggle Studies for an OWL and NEWT, and knew which society she wanted to belong to. While Professor Binns had droned on about Goblin Rebellions, Dorcas Lydia had read books about Elizabeth I, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, JFK and numerous other icons under her desk. How amazing people like them could be deserving of death because they couldn’t use a wand was beyond her. The fact that they did what they did with no magic whatsoever only increased her admiration of them.

She forged documents for herself, including GCSE and A level results as well as a birth certificate. She then, reminded of the countless hours she had spent reading Sherlock Holmes stories under her covers at night, enlisted in a police training program and began to climb up the career ladder at Scotland Yard.

On her documents she called herself Lydia Mary Meadowes. She didn’t want the reminder of her mother anymore; she wanted to be free of the weight of expectation that had been hanging over her like a dark shadow all her life. Dorcas Lydia Meadowes had not been free, but Lydia Mary Meadowes was.

Until it all ended in 1995, when she received a call summoning her to a crime scene. Recently promoted to sergeant, she stared at the body of the man on the living room floor of his suburban house, the rest of his family strewn around. Gazing at his lifeless eyes and horrified expression, reminiscent of how she pictured her mother’s corpse when she was found, Lydia knew that the war that had supposedly ended when Voldemort tried to murder an infant Harry Potter had not really ended, it was only the wizarding world’s First War. A Second War, such as it had in the muggle world, was starting.


	2. Murder in Surburbia

If there was one thing that Lydia Meadowes hated most about crime scenes in houses, it was the photographs. The dozens of pictures that would be inevitably scattered throughout the living room, kitchen and bedroom, all displaying heart-warming and touching moments of family life. It was altogether more haunting then frenetic wizarding photographs that never sat still long enough for her to guess the nature of image.

The corpse she was stood over was that of a man, Mr Oliver. His wife was in the hallway and his two children were still in bed upstairs. The man would have had a pleasant face if it wasn’t twisted up in horror and fear. He was also a muggleborn judging from his suburban home and the wand in his jean pocket. Before anyone had seen it Lydia had snatched it and hidden it in her handbag along with hers. She could only imagine the fallout if the wand accidentally went off in the evidence lock-up. 

“Pathologist can’t figure out what killed them,” a voice came from behind her. Lydia turned around and smiled as she saw DI George Jones leaning against the doorframe with a cup of coffee. “They haven’t got a mark on them.”

“I’m sure Dr McGuire will come up with a cause of death,” Lydia replied calmly, trying to ignore the knots in her stomach at the lie. The Killing Curse always left its victims unblemished. “Has a time of death been estimated?” 

“Approximately five this morning they think,” George said, running a hand through his blonde hair. "One of the neighbours reported seeing something in the sky like an image of some sort, but there was nothing there."

“Why up so early?” Lydia asked, “What did the Olivers do for a living?”

“Mrs Oliver was a chef at a restaurant nearby, Mr Oliver is a different story. In fact there appears to be no record of him after the age of eleven.”

Lydia knew it would be considered somewhat macabre, but she was pleased her inference was right. While Mr Oliver was obviously a muggleborn, she suspected that Mrs Oliver was either a muggle or a squib.

“The two children were found dead in bed weren’t they?” she pushed further, trying to paint the full picture of the crime scene in her mind.

“Poor things,” George murmured, “I hope they didn’t realise what was happening.”

Lydia momentarily glanced around the living room and her eyes focused on one of the pictures on the coffee table. It showed the family at Disneyland, beaming away and wearing Mickey Mouse hats. What really struck her however was the fact that in the photograph there were three, not two children.

“The Olivers have three children,” she whispered to herself, before repeating it louder to George.

George nodded and shouted to one of the Sergeants upstairs to check out the bedrooms. The reply was three children’s rooms and Mr and Mrs Olivers’ room.

“Where is the kid though?” George said as they moved out into the hallway, “was he kidnapped?”

Lydia stopped in the kitchen and noticed a door off to one side. “George, help me get this door down!” she called out.

“Why’s someone locked it,” George thought aloud, examining the large padlock on the door. “What’s down here?”

“Help me get the door open and we can find out,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes in frustration.

George motioned for her to stand back and rammed the door with his shoulder until it gave way.

“Let me go first,” Lydia said, peering into the gloom, “follow me.”

George tried to protest but she shushed him by raising one finger. She slowly descended the stairs clutching the railing for support. The wooden stairs creaked under her and George’s weight, leading her to fear that they might fall through.

When they reached the bottom, Lydia rummaged in her handbag and was half-tempted to pull out her wand and cast Lumos, before remembering that George was a muggle and that doing so would result in her being imprisoned in a Government testing facility. Instead she pulled out her flashlight and flicked the on switch.

There, in the middle of mountains of shredded blankets and pillows, lay a small naked boy. Bloodied and shivering yet very much alive. 

“What’s he doing down here?” George asked rhetorically, while the gears in Lydia’s mind whirred away, coming up with one word.

Werewolf.

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify, the mother of Dorcas Lydia Meadowes in this fic, is the Dorcas Meadowes that was a member of the original Order of the Phoenix, and as Mad Eye Moody said, to have been killed by Voldemort himself. Planning to turn this into a long series, so feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


End file.
